Flurries

Looks like snow, but not enough to stick. There were a few flurries downtown already mixed in with drizzle. Not ideal biking weather, but I’m trying to bike more, especially with gas prices so high. So what the hell, I’ll be out in it today. Hopefully it won’t be too bad.

And if it is, I’ll just take the bus. I’ve been meaning to write about how nice it is that you can just throw your bike on the front rack and go. It’s such a great freedom to be able to have that as a plan b, and not have to figure out what to do with your bike. I got mine stolen about a year ago, and I’ve been worried about leaving the new one around ever since.

So if we have more than flurries when I’m heading home, or if I just don’t feel like riding, it’s nice to have an alternative.

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I’ve given up on walking and biking (the bus is useless where I’m at) and have been just using my car to get around lately. It’s just too nasty outside and the distances I have to cover are too far. If I only had to go a mile I probably still be biking and walking, but I’m going more like 2.5-5 miles from the house.

I don’t think this is an open thread, but I thought this was worth posting:

* While Republicans are encouraging the Israelis to bomb Iran, the U.S. has reached a preliminary agreement with N. Korea for them to stop their nuclear program. Thanks, Hillary!

* Actor/singer Davy Jones (of the “Monkees”) died at age 66 of an apparant heart attack. Most of us from that era remember him from that show and as a tenny-bopper heartthrob. But he also was on the same Ed Sullivan show with the Beatles – he was appearing on Broadway as the lead in “Oliver”, and he sang a song from the show. The audience was impatient, they just wanted to see the Beatles.

Buses work the best for getting to Seattle or Bellevue, otherwise it’s a pain in the neck with the transfers. For my commute from Bothell to between Renton/Kent, it’s two transfers and ends up taking longer than just driving the nastiness of I-405.

Maybe someday my grandkids will get to enjoy the train on Sound Transit when they complete a rail line to connect the I-405 corridor

@4 Although the Monkees are kind of a pop music footnote, for a short time they were very popular. Their brief success owed a lot to some great songwriters and studio musicians. Their TV show would have totally sucked otherwise.

Against my will, really, I actually liked a few of their songs. One of my favorites – I wasn’t free at the time myself – this is one I hadn’t heard since the days it played on the radio, with lead vocals by Davy Jones.

The silence of the falling snow kind of reminds me of the attention paid to the GOP presidential race over at (un)SP. I suppose it makes sense. I can see how what they’re witnessing must really suck for them. It kind of sucks for the rest of the nation too.

The death toll left by 15 tornadoes that blew through the Midwest overnight is at 7, according to authorities, and is expected to rise.

The extensive damage caused by the storms in at least five states is only beginning to become clear, meanwhile, more tornado watches are in effect in Kentucky and Tennessee, according to the National Weather Service.

# 6: The Monkeys were a creation of the music producer Don Kirschner, who had a lot of success over the years at the “song factory” which was the Brill Building, bringing in Neal Sedaka, Carol King, Paul Anka, James Taylor, Billy Joel, and many others to write songs for others to record. Many of the song writers were still in their teens at the time.

This producer saw the teenage excitement over the Beatle’s movie “Help”, and decided he wanted to make a TV show with the energy – and cash potential – of the movie. He envisioned something which could be done cheaply, with the actors/musicians being young unkowns, and the actual music written by his stable of talent and performed by studio muscisions. The actors were just supposed to lip-synch. So a lot of the Monkey’s songs were actually written by Carol King and her then-husband, Buddy Goffen. “Pleasant Valley Sunday” is an example.

But Michael Nesmith was a budding song-writer, and worked out a deal to have each Monkey’s album include at least two of his songs. Some of the other Monkeys complained that Michael Nesmith was off doing his own thing, not hanging with the gang. But they admitted later that he knew what he was doing – by writing songs he continues to receive residual payments every time one of his songs is played on the radio, either recorded by himself or by somebody else. Even before joining the Monkeys he had a written “Different Drummer” which he stumbled through in a fake “audition performance” on the TV show. That song was picked up by Linda Ronstadt and the Stone Poneys and became her first big hit (her arraingment being considerably better than Nesmith’s original arraingment.) But Nesmith gained some credit as one of the early pioneers of country-rock music.

Micky Dolenz had also become immersed in the music culture of the era, and if you rent the movie about the Monteray Pop Festival you can see him in the front or second row, jumping up and clapping with pure joy at the conclusion of one performance. All of the Monkeys were, by now, in their early to mid-twenties, and by 1967-68 they were embarrased by their teeny-bopper image and wanted to get involved in the social and political movements of the day. They also wanted to become a real rock band, and Neil Kirchner pushed back.

It came to a head when the producer played them a demo tape of “Sugar, Sugar”, saying it was their next big hit, except that it would be performed by studio musicians, and lip-synched by the actors. They refused, and at one point Nesmith put his fist through the wall of Kirchner’s office. Kirchner ended up having it recorded anyway under the name of a band in a comic book, “the Archies”, and it was a hit in terms of money made. (For those to young to remember, the music and lyrics were sickenly simple and sweet, living up to the name of the song). The Monkeys show was canceled after two seasons, mostly because the actors and Kirchner wouldn’t speak to one another.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not against Keystone XL, I’m for it. I’m for going around, instead of over, Sandhills and Ogallala Aquifer, that’s all — which is what TransCanada will do. The pipeline will be built, will be completed on schedule, will create 20 permanent jobs, and will make gasoline more expensive in the Midwest. That’s as things should be; I don’t see why you humans should be able to buy gas from my oil company for less than $4/gallon.

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